1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems and more particularly to object-oriented management information models.
2. Background Information
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is an information handling system. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As the capabilities, diversity, and size of information systems and networks continue to increase the complexity of system management also increases. Developing and unifying management standards for desktop, enterprise and Internet environments is a main goal of the Distributed Management Task Force Inc. (DMTF). DMTF standards are platform-independent and technology neutral, and facilitate cost effective system management. The DMTFrs Common Information Model (CIM) standard is an object-oriented management information model that unifies and extends existing management standards, such as for example, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Desktop Management Interface (DMI), and Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP). The CIM specification defines the syntax and rules of the model and how CIM can be integrated with other management models, while the CIM schema comprises the descriptions of the models. The CIM schema currently defines thousands of classes with properties, methods and associations that represent components of a system such as, but not limited to, fans, power supplies, processors, and firmware. The classes are organized by namespaces, which function as logical databases. DMTF Profiles are specifications that define the CIM model and associated behavior for a management domain. The profiles define requirements regarding the classes and associations used to represent the management information in a given management domain. Generally, within a CIM Object Manager (CIMOM), profiles are implemented by different providers in one or more namespaces. The CIMOM provides an interface, which allows a provider to expose the instances of CIM classes, and a client application to read and/or write properties and invoke methods.
With respect to client-side system management of CIM, there may be limitations and drawbacks with the current implementations. For example, the current design of a CIM client requires built-in knowledge of the CIM model. The CIM model, however, evolves rapidly thus the built-in knowledge may become insufficient. There exists a lack of uniformity and/or interoperability as different operating systems (OS) have different implementations of CIMOMs, and different platforms have different components. Current CIM implementations may also suffer from efficiency problems. For example, in order to get system management information using current implementations, multiple queries going through multiple namespaces and classes are required which can be very time consuming. As one non-limiting example, in order to retrieve the asset information in a data center, a CIM client currently must traverse through the interop namespace to find the registered profiles, then go through the ElementConformsToProfile association to the managed component namespace and find the chassis class, and finally retrieve the asset information. For each server, the CIM client must traverse at least three classes and two namespaces in order to retrieve the information. A managed system such as a data center may comprise hundreds of thousands of machines, and performing this action on each machine is very time consuming. As another example, generally when a CIM client tries to retrieve information from a CIMOM a certain CIM provider is called to perform the action. This approach is not very efficient when multiple CIM client calls are sent to retrieve system management information at one time, for example, when multiple calls are sent to a main graphical user interface (GUI) page of a server management or storage management page. The current implementations also lack efficient management of dynamic systems wherein components may be hot-plugged to devices, such as, but not limited to, Storage Area Networks (SANs) or Network Attached Storages (NASs). Moreover, current system management implementations require proprietary clients and do not provide a CIM client capable of carrying out platform-independent, operating system-independent, and CIM schema version-independent system management.
The methods, apparatus and products of the present disclosure may provide a management layer operable between a client and an object manager in an object-oriented model (OOM). The present management layer is also referred to herein as a client abstraction layer (CAL). The methods, apparatus and products of the present disclosure are client-side implementations. The management layer of the present disclosure overcomes the need to perform multiple queries through multiple layers in order to retrieve system management information. In addition, a variety of system management applications such as, but not limited to, inventory collection, change management, and system monitoring, can be easily built upon this management layer. Unlike conventional system management implementation, the present management layer media and methods are platform-independent, operating system-independent, and OOM schema version-independent.